A constant refrain I have heard throughout my African trip from almost every african I have encountered  is "wow that’s dangerous!  I mean, here in (SA/Namibia/Angola/DRC/etc.) it’s plenty safe, but over THERE, those people are DIFFERENT.

In my experience, you need the world’s largest grain of salt when talking to any African who has rarely left a 10 kilometer radius from where they were born about foreigners.

Inevitably, the fears and suspicions are completely unfounded, and I have found wonderful people all over, as well as my share of not so nice characters.

I attribute this paranoia and warnings of dire gloom to two main factors, among others:  Tribalism and Ignorance.

Now tribalism is not unique to Africa at all, but rather it is many ways heightened to the artificial colonial boundaries drawn by Europeans, ongoing violent conflict, flat or negative economic growth and standards of livings that are often blamed on foreigners or interlopers,

Most fundamental to this is ignorance - if you have limited literacy, no access to modern forms of communication, and little education about the outside world, even honest attempts at understanding are going to fall short.

A great example of this from outside Africa comes when I was in Istanbul, Turkey several years ago and was running late to catch my flight back to Amsterdam.  I had in my infinite wisdom decided to take a bus that I thought would give me plenty of time instead of the exorbitant cost of a taxi.

Oops.

As we creaked closer and closer to the airport, stopping every 3 or 4 feet to either pick someone up or drop someone off, cutting down sidestreets for no apparent reason, I attempted to get some information in my non-existent Turkish from my fellow passengers, not one of whom spoke a word of English.

i drew an extensive visual map with the times, and the best picture of an airplane I could muster, and my fellow passengers assured me repeatedly that I would make my flight.

My flight was at 7pm.

The bus arrived at 6:55pm.

Needless to say I didn’t make it.

As I stood there wondering what happened I realized that none of my fellow passengers had ever been on airplane, and they assumed that if you were there seconds before takeoff, you could just jump in the door like you can with a bus.  There was no frame of reference for security lines, boarding procedures, etc.

In a similar fashion, without any cultural reference about what the people "over there" are like, many Africans will continue to issue one dire warning after another.

Yet the further north I go, the only thing I find consistent about the unending variety of people, culture, mannerisms, and attitudes, is that people are generally friendly, more curious than threatening, and good natured about life.